Friday, April 23, 2010

April 20, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A biopic of Dr. Jack Kevorkian that portrays the famous mass-murderer in a sympathetic light is set to air on HBO Saturday night. Known to many as "Dr. Death," Kevorkian has admitted to murdering over 130 disabled, terminally ill, and healthy suicidal individuals.

"You Don't Know Jack," which stars Al Pacino and reportedly takes a lighthearted approach to Dr. Kevorkian's trail of murders that led to his national celebrity status, has already been shown in a premiere in New York last week. Another premiere is set to take place in Detroit on Thursday.

Kevorkian was recently released from parole after serving over eight years in prison for the second-degree murder of 52-year-old Lou Gherig's disease sufferer Thomas Youk. Although Kevorkian, 82, said in an interview last year that he was tempted to kill himself in prison, his lawyer talked him out of it; ironically, Kevorkian admitted that he would not have done the same in return.

In an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper last week, Kevorkian expressed satisfaction with the film, and affirmed that he was still willing to kill despairing people. Read more.

Editor's note: The gruesome handiwork of Jack Kevorkian is covered at length in the excellent book "Death as a Salesman" by Brian Johnston (also available on DVD). Learn more at http://deathasasalesman.com/

The couple had been anxiously awaiting the birth of their baby. There was no sonogram picture of him, so their first glimpse occurred after he had been delivered.

They were shocked by what they saw.

He had been born without arms and with shortened legs. This was not what they had expected.

The doctor had worked heroically to ensure that the baby would be born and that his mother would survive. However, after the physician determined to himself that the baby would be “better off dead,” little Chet McDoniel was placed in a crib in a corner of the room and left to die.

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Thousands of young people across the country will take to the streets and the schools with a message for their peers: oppose abortion. National Pro-Life T Shirt Week is organizing youth and young adults in high schools and colleges across the nation to stand up for unborn children.

In addition to wearing pro-life T-shirts next week, students are urged to engage in sidewalk chalking a pro-life message and standing in front of top government buildings with the shirts. Full story.

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A new bill filed by pro-life members of Congress would apply the historic Hyde amendment language to the new health care bill President Barack Obama signed into law that calls for massive abortion funding. Full story.

DICKINSON, North Dakota, April 23, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A North Dakota grassroots pro-life organization is announcing the official beginning of an effort to circulate petitions for an initiated measure that would prohibit physicians from decapitating and crushing the skulls of living unborn children.

‘The Baby Decapitation and Skull Crushing Ban’ was approved for circulation by the North Dakota Secretary of State and Attorney General on Thursday. Daniel Woodard, head of the state-wide Stop Decapitation Network, aims to collect 12,844 signatures in order to place the measure on the 2010 or 2012 ballot. The ban would become law if a majority of North Dakotans vote for it.

The Petition Title reads: “This initiated measure would create a new chapter to the North Dakota Century Code making it a crime for a physician to knowingly decapitate or crush the skull of a living unborn child or to incidentally cause serious bodily injury to the mother due to a resulting skull fragment; medical treatment could be used to save the life of the mother if the death of the child is incidental to the treatment.”

“It says a lot about how far we’ve sunk as a godly nation that we would need to pass a law banning the decapitation and skull crushing of babies waiting to be born," said Woodard. "The barbarians of old were not even as savage as some abortion 'doctors.' It’s supremely ironic that we accuse Islamic governments of savagely decapitating their own people, yet they accuse Western governments of savagely decapitating their own children.

"This insane slaughter of others must stop now. None of it is justified.”

The Stop Decapitation Network's press release pointed to federal testimony by an abortionist describing the gruesome process of decapitating and crushing unborn babies' skulls to complete abortions. Full story.

April 23, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Harlan Drake, the truck driver who shot and killed pro-life activist James Pouillon and local gravel pit owner Mike Fuoss, has been sentenced to life in prison. Full story.

Washington, DC, April 20, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A recent study by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has confirmed 1988 as a “change point” in the rise of Autism Disorder rates in the U.S. - a date that pro-life leaders say correlates with the introduction of fetal cells for use in vaccines. Full story.

Live Action, a student-led pro-life group, has exposed alleged illicit practices at another abortion clinic.

In June 2008, Live Action's Lila Rose and Jackie Stoller entered a Louisville, Kentucky, abortion clinic with Rose posing as a 14-year-old impregnated by a 31-year-old man. During Rose's interview, clinic personnel did not gather information needed to report the crime of statutory rape. In Kentucky, sexual intercourse between a girl under 16 and a man 21 or older constitutes rape in the third degree. Read more.

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of "The Pill" the Wall Street Journal ran a lengthy and misleading article ("The Birth Control Riddle" April 20, 2009) by Melinda Beck, calling the arrival of The Birth Control Pill the "dawn of dependable contraception" which "ignited the sexual revolution, ended the post-war baby boom and helped millions of women enter the work force." Ms Beck then proceeds to lament all of the "unplanned pregnancies" which still occur today before detailing for us how safe it is now to use new and improved birth control methods.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Ottawa, Canada (LifeNews.com) -- The Canadian parliament on Wednesday defeated a bill that would have legalized assisted suicide and euthanasia. MPs form all parties voted against the measure, Bill C-384, the private members bill sponsored by Francine Lalonde that was opposed by pro-life and disability rights organizations. Full story.

A recent study reveals that a few physicians may have facilitated the deaths of terminally ill children at their parents' request.

The study was published in the March edition of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. Dr. Joanne Wolfe, a palliative pain specialist at Boston's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Children's Hospital, interviewed 141 parents of children who died of cancer.

"They had found out...in that study 19 of the parents had thought about having their child euthanized, 13 had actually talked about it seriously, five spoke to their physician about it, and in three cases, the parents said that the doctor agreed to give their child a lethal overdose and the child died," reports Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC).

He notes that the practice is illegal in all 50 states because it is euthanasia, and he says the study really points out the need for better pain management, whether it is for an adult or a child.

"The fact is that the answer is not to go out and kill the child," Schadenberg contends. "The answer is to properly care for these children. If they are to die, that they be properly cared for and die a natural death without having to suffer like that." Full story.

A lawsuit against a presidential edict to use federal funds for embryonic stem-cell research has gone to an appeals court.

On March 9, 2009, President Obama issued an executive order, rescinding an order from former President George W. Bush that prohibited federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research. Steven H. Aden of the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) argued in court that the Obama administration is violating federal law.

"In the Dickey/Wicker Amendment, Congress prohibited federal funding for destructive embryonic stem-cell research," the attorney explains. "That didn't matter to the Obama administration, which issued the executive order allowing the funding of research on lines that had been derived from the destruction of human embryos." Full story.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Scientists in England say that they are just three years away from creating three-parent embryos which would be free from rare mitochondrial diseases. In an article in Nature, researchers from Newcastle University say that they created 80 embryos which grew for six to eight days to reach the blastocyst stage, a ball of around 100 cells. They were then destroyed, in line with UK legislation. Full story.

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Political observers have settled on a list of about a dozen potential nominees to the Supreme Court and federal appeals court Judge Diane Wood is frequently considered one of the top three likely nominees. However, Wood is considered one of the most ardently pro-abortion -- and it may cost her.

President Barack Obama will have to consider a replacement for retiring pro-abortion Justice John Paul Stevens. Read more.

Local pro-life groups are getting prepared to deal with a late-term abortion facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Operation Rescue president Troy Newman recently visited "The Duke City" to plan strategy with local pro-lifers, and he explains why that city has taken on fresh importance.

"Since the death of Mr. George Tiller in Wichita, Kansas, we see that there's one place emerging that wants to become the next abortion capital of the world -- and that's Albuquerque, New Mexico, with Curtis Boyd," Newman reports. "He's actually hired two of Tiller's former abortionists." Read more.

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The Freedom Riders of 1961 made history as they took their lives in their hands to protest the injustice of segregation. This summer, a group of black pro-life advocates will join leaders of the Catholic pro-life Priests for Life to stage pro-life Freedom Rides among some of the same routes used decades ago. Full story.

Cannes, France (LifeNews.com) -- A movie about a baby born alive after a failed abortion is set to premier at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival in May. The film "22 Weeks" tells the true story of a baby aborted alive in an Orlando, Florida abortion center in 2005 and director Ángel Soto has announced the 22-minute picture will air at the respected event.

A woman named Angele sued an Orlando abortion business in April 2005 for allowing a newborn child to die after she gave birth to the child. Full story.

PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania, April 19, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Kurt A. Kondrich is a 20 year veteran of the Pittsburgh police force. Six years ago his daughter Chloe was born with Down Syndrome. This motivated Kondrich to return to college to earn a masters degree in Early Intervention. After graduation he retired from his law enforcement career to become Director of Community/Family Outreach for Early Intervention in the Pittsburgh area. Kondrich read a news report last week about the Sarasota, Florida abortionist who lamented killing the "wrong" unborn child during a selective reduction procedure to eliminate a Down syndrome fetus. The father of Chloe and advocate for Down syndrome children could not sleep that night and got up at 3 a.m. to write the following response to the news article:

Targeted for Termination

This past week I read an article that disturbed me deeply concerning a Florida doctor who had his license revoked . The article stated that the doctor "lost his license for mistakenly aborting a healthy twin during a procedure targeting a deformed fetus." The doctor was "targeting a fetus with Down syndrome", and he admitted he "screwed up". Based on the facts presented in this article one can conclude that if the doctor had properly targeted the unborn child with Down syndrome and successfully terminated this twin then he would have kept his medical license.

My beautiful 6 year old daughter Chloe has Down syndrome and has brought immeasurable good and Blessings into this world, and I have observed no "deformities" about her. Read more.